Watson’s tenure as the 11 a.m. host was brief, awarded the gig only in June, scooping up the hour amid chatterings that Meet The Press host David Gregory would anchor at that time for one day a week, and that MSNBC Chief Washington Correspondent Norah O’Donnell was also up for an hour. Russo said that there is no replacement scheduled for the 11 a.m. slot, which will be covered by the MSNBC dayside anchor team.

Watson’s website, The Stimulust, is currently “on hiatus” according to its front page, and will be “back soon.” (Update: According to Politico’s Patrick Gavin, it’s been “stagnant for weeks.”) We’ve emailed Watson for comment and are awaiting a reply. (In the meantime, the front page slideshow looks pretty sharp; I must confess that I clicked on this. And the LeBron illustration is great.)

For background, here’s what Danielle Belton posted earlier today:

I’m hearing murmurs from sources that as of Friday Carlos Watson’s 11 a.m. MSNBC show might be no more! Will do some digging to see if that’s true… If this story is true this is a major bummer. First my Uncle Rolly Rolls gets no show from CNN (but luckily Roland Martin will be getting his own shot at a political news gig on TV One this fall), and now this! What’s it gotta take for a person of color, black or otherwise to get and keep a news show on the air?

I don’t know why Watson’s hour was canceled — Russo declined to comment on that part — but it’s no secret that the original MSNBC dayside shakeup was ratings-related. MSNBC confirmed that the hours hosted by Dylan Ratigan and Dr. Nancy Snyderman are safe, so it seems to reason that Watson’s hour was the low-rated alien-baby stepchild in the bunch.

…but then there’s this, from TV By The Numbers, just two days ago:

I’m sure there were high hopes at MSNBC a few months ago when Dylan Ratigan’s Morning Meeting (9-11am) and the Dr. Nancy (12pm) show launched that they’d rejuvenate weekday daytime ratings.

But, sadly for MSNBC, at least initially, those 2 shows have tallied weaker ratings than the shows in the same timeslots a year ago. Ratigan’s Meeting is down 26% in the cable news targeted adults 25-54 demo, and Dr. Nancy’s show is down 43% in that demo, as well as 27% in viewers.

Down 26%? Down 43%? Yikes, that is not good. (Though please consider that a year ago we were in the thick of the conventions and Sarah Palin had just been introduced into the media bloodstream. That’ll make a difference in ratings.) It stands to reason — and we have indeed heard — that Watson’s hour was also performing poorly. But — poorly enough to stand out amongst these numbers?

Also, to be fair, Watson’s hour never got the kind of promotion that Ratigan’s Morning Meeting or Snyderman’s Sniffle-Tastic Swine Flu Hour got, with interstitial promos and the like — just a look at the website makes that plain (though where is Andrea Mitchell across the top? And to be fair, David Shuster and Tamron Hall are not pictured, either).

Upshot: Watson was never announced as permanent anchor nor was given much of a push — but he did have a website with a well-covered launch, and was permitted to use feature ideas from that on his show (i.e. his “C-Note” segment). So, presumably it was his to make work, or on with the next person.

And who will be that next person? Well, I’m just going to throw something out there: If mornings and 11 a.m. are such a challenging spot, then maybe MSNBC needs to try something different. Here are two suggestions: (1) Force Willie Geist to stay up for one more hour and rerun a version of “Way Too Early” at 11, because that show is tight and quite fun; (2) Try for the younger demo via Ana Marie Cox, whose guest-hosting for Rachel Maddow was very impressive. Also, she has 1,104,204 Twitter followers. Those are the kind of numbers that could prop up Ratigan, Snyderman, and everyone else across the MSNBC dial. Something to think about.

(NB: I should note here that I rarely caught his show so I cannot make a qualitative judgment here. As someone who leaves MSNBC on in the background a whole lot, that, too, may be saying something. As for “Sniffle-Tastic Swine Flu Hour,” that’s not a qualitative judgment, either; I just thought it sounded funny. Swine Flu is important!)

This post has been edited and updated from its original version.

You can’t even knock up your teenage ex-girlfriend in peace anymore. Now you need a lawyer and an agent to negotiate the media minefield. Most kids get by with a job at the McDonald’s and college correspondence courses.

But young Levi Johnston has it easy compared to his fellow media-rehabbers, Tom DeLay and NFL quarterback Michael Vick. He’s only killed moose, not the dogs you hunt the moose with. And he’s not so awful that even Newt Gingrich hates him. It’s just the Palins who don’t like him and they don’t like a lot of people. If anything, he might make five or five million friends based on that fact alone. Heck, Kathy Griffin went on a faux date with him and he’s not bad looking. If anything HE should be on “Dancing With the Stars” instead of former House juggernaunt Tom “The Hammer” Delay. Johnson could be the rugged teenheart throb for fangirls who read Field and Stream. Or watch Ice Truckers.

Michael Vick probably has the biggest media mountain (molehill?) to climb. It’s not like he got drunk and killed a person with a car or something, a la Donte Stallworth, Leonard Little or Laura Bush. He killed dogs. The only think worse than dog killing is being apparently lying about steroid use in the majors. Or, in the eyes of sportswriters and negative media coverage those are the worst things you can do. Meaning: Unless he starts winning in Philly he’ll neva live it down.

Unless you’re from Texas or a political junkie there’s a good chance you don’t know who Tom DeLay is or why people dislike him so. Maybe it’s because of his reputation as a bully. Maybe it’s his reputation as a manipulator. Maybe it’s because you’re former Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts, a fellow Republican, who had to deal with DeLay being a royal pain, then backing another Republican, not Watts, for your seat during reelection. Maybe it was the indictments. Whatever it was, some people just don’t like Tom DeLay. And he wouldn’t be the first conservative Republican to give it the ol’ college try on Dancing With the Stars. TV’s Tucker Carlson and former vice president Dan Qualye have all tried to two-step their way into America’s cold, black, cynical heart. Again, I can think of several Republicans I would rather see on DWTS who are NOT Tom DeLay (Cindy McCain, Meghan McCain, John McCain, anyone named McCain, Ann Coulter, all the Palins, even the babies, Levi Johnson and former First Lady Laura and second President Bush, etc.) But obviously, I’m not getting my way on this one. I’ll still hold out hope for Cindy McCain though. I bet she secretly knows how to throw down. She used to be a cheerleader.

Anyone is capable of a little media makeover these days and there are a plethora of internet columnist, political pundit, reality show houseguest gigs to get you started on that road to redemption. Sometimes it could help with a little carefully tailored documentary (yea for Britney Spears’ not quite tell-all For the Record, nay for Paris Hilton’s documentary, Paris Not France. I don’t think that thing even put in a dent.) Eliot Spitzer has managed to take his whoring of legend and turn it into a column for Slate, a regular pundit spot on MSNBC and, oddly, some cred as an economic authority. But the greatest way to rehab via media is to actually be successful. There’s nothing our cold, black hearts love more than a comeback kid (see Clinton, William Jefferson). We secretly want to see all deadbeats, also-rans and loathed ones become loved ones and ride high in the saddle again. So work hard, study hard and film at 11.

Danielle Belton has been writing the popular “The Black Snob” blog since August 2007. She has contributed to the American Prospect, NPR, the Huffington Post and has been featured on Nightline. This column originally appeared on The Black Snob here. Learn more about Danielle here.

Many of my own commenters on The Black Snob have noted, some with surprise, that among white Americans being called a racist is one of the worst things you can say (or be). This really shouldn’t be a shock since insanely overt racism was largely driven underground after the Civil Right Movement. By overt, I mean having the comfort to drop a “Martin Luther Coon … er King” on national television. That kind of overt. Where Strom Thurmond could flat out say he didn’t want “niggers” in his state’s swimming pools on the radio. That kind of overt.

For years if you wanted to say something racist it had to be in “coded” language – state’s rights, quotas, etc. You couldn’t flat out say something racist, but now there’s a new game in town. The “reverse racist” game. Now how a “reverse racist” is different from an old-fashioned racist I’ve been unable to tell, other than it appears to be the word du jour about conservative yakkadoodles to describe minorities who they feel are keeping the white man down. Usually said from the comfort of their multi-million dollar radio studios ensconced in their multi-million dollar homes.

The latest crier of “reverse racism” is Glenn Beck, who proudly declared that President Barack Obama is a regular ol’ racist apropos of nothing. He concluded that the president must have a serious problem with white people despite the fact that the president was loved and raised by nothing BUT white people.

I wonder if those white people who birthed and reared the president knew from the time he was but a wee babe that he hated their immortal souls? And does the president hate the white half of himself? Does he, in fact, call himself white racial slurs out of malice while singing the Negro National Anthem? Kind of like black, non-Jewish version of Ryan Gosling in “The Believer?” When he does bad things or makes mistakes does he blame “the whitey within?” Puh-leeze.

The NAACP recently released a statement condemning Beck that echoed my sentiments:

Mr. Beck’s statement was irresponsible and inflammatory at a time when as a nation we are attempting to engage in a constructive dialogue on race. Beck’s statements are an attempt to divide when we need to be united, an attempt to inflame with rhetoric when we need to discuss with thoughtfulness the serious question of race. It is a futile effort to distract from the serious issues of health care, the economy and the environment – issues that President Obama is tackling with foresight and fortitude.How could the President be a racist? A man of both African American and white heritage; a man who inspired millions of Americans to unite across the divide of race, religion and age in his historic run for the presidency. We commend President Obama for having the courage to discuss an issue that all too many Americans consider a third rail.

The “reverse racism” cry seems most used by those who are often called on for being the most insensitive to minorities and women – your Rush Limbaughs, your Glenn Becks, your Sean Hannitys. Basically, if you’ve been accused of being an actual racist at some point, you’re probably busy calling someone, on air, right now a “reverse racist” despite the absurdity of throwing loaded language to hide one’s own psychological projections.

As Kelefa Sanneh writes in this week’s New Yorker:

In the past few decades, though, reverse racism has undergone a similar redefinition, from symptom to system. Some who are skeptical of affirmative action, and of other programs designed to advance non-whites, consider reverse racism to be so pervasive, and so well entrenched, that it can only be described as systemic. (Think of Frank Ricci, the white firefighter who argued, successfully, that the city of New Haven had violated his civil rights.) And, despite Beck’s diagnosis of Obama’s “hatred,” many of the people who worry about Obama’s view of race see him not as personally bigoted but as complicit with anti-white interests and policies.

Considering how shameful and violent America’s racist past is you can kind of see why “racist” is a fighting word among white people. Any given Klan or Neo-Nazi rally and you’re likely to see more whites show up to protest their brand of ignorance than attend the actual rally. The Klan is a haunting old embarrassment, along with being highly offensive. The death of public racism lead to them from having a membership of Congressmen and judges to yokels and nobodies. Even if you ARE a racist, you don’t want to be associated with “racists.” Which is why Beck, et al, are quick to call others racists, throwing stones to hide their own prejudices. That’s why someone like Pat Buchanan is so wonderfully amazing in his unicorn-like ability to say something to the effect of “This has been a country basically built by white folks” with a straight face, mean it and not be a-feared that the boogeyman will get him for being so … well … you know.

While some are wondering if all the “President is a racist” rancor will lead to a return of more blatant and coarser racial rhetoric, I think the stigma of being labeled a racist is still so strong that even those who actual are ones, will never publicly adhere to it. They’ll dance around it. Flirt with it. Make out with it occasionally. But the days of declaring the love that dare not say it’s racist name are over. Because, the only thing worst than being a public bigot among white people is “child molester.” And if you’re a racist child molester … God help you. Even Klansmen hate child molesters. You’re not going to have ANY friends in prison.

Danielle Belton has been writing the popular “The Black Snob” blog since August 2007. She has contributed to the American Prospect, NPR, the Huffington Post and has been featured on Nightline. This column originally appeared on The Black Snob here. Learn more about Danielle here.